Sidekicks
by Touch of Grey
Summary: Robins Bandverse AU.


Title: Sidekicks

Fandom: Batman/Robins Bandverse AU

Couples: Dick/Tim, Kon/Tim, Cass/Steph, Steph/Dami, Colin/Dami...basically one giant Batorgy of cuteness.

Rating: PG-13 -gasp- mostly because Jason just isn't Jason without the word fuck.

Sidekicks

Cass finally caught up to them in Seattle.

She'd been living the life of a train-hopper of justice, fighting crime in whatever area of whatever city she'd managed to wind up in, going weeks at a time without seeing so much as a newspaper. It wasn't until she'd spotted their faces on the side of a bus that she'd decided to hunt them down. Steph was overjoyed.

"Ohmygoood you're gonna love Seattle we've got to go to the Space Needle again and get you some coffee and you're totally joining the band because I'm never letting you out of my sight _again_ and-" Cassandra allowed her to babble on, taking in the sight of the rest of her adopted family for the first time in months.

Steph was as bright and bubbly as always, Tim had lost a bit of his mysterious facade while still managing to keep up the appearance that he was as full of secrets as ever, Dick was...Dick. What more could be said? Jason eyed her with a mix of suspicion, interest, and respect. Obviously, Steph had been talking up her merits to him, as they'd never formally met. Speaking of new family...

In any other circumstance, at any other time, Damian would have been overjoyed to meet the famous second Batgirl. She was only the person he'd dreamed of meeting all his life, next to his father, Cassandra Cain, the 'One Who is All'. But the look Steph had gotten on her face when she spotted Cass backstage...it twisted in his heart. Damian cocked his head at her, and she tilted up her chin. It was an unspoken exchange that they'd been trained since birth to understand.

_"Fight you for her."_

_"Little boy, I would whip your ass."_

The Midwest was always a fun place to tour. There was more corn per square mile than any of them, barring Cass, who'd been all up and down this neck of the country on her trains, had ever seen in their lives. It was there, in a town in the middle of a cornfield, that they rediscovered Colin Wikes.

Damian's eyebrows shot up to his hairline as he heard someone call his name. It wasn't any of his family, and they'd never put their name on their tour bus, so who could possibly know that they were filling up at the service station? He was surprised to find his reflexes failing him as he was crushed in a hug by a large, rough-looking man. Immediately, his family was on guard, pulling the man off of him and throwing him to the ground. Steph shielded Damian as Jason and Dick held the man down.

"Who the _hell_ do you think you are, throwing yourself at a kid like that? At our _brother_?"

Panic evident on his face, the man tried to wave his hands to get them to let him up.

"No, no, you don't understand! I _know_ him! Damian, it's me, Colin! Abuse!" Recognition lit up like fireworks in his brain, and Damian broke away from Steph to push at his brothers arms.

"Let him up, let him up! He's barely older than me, this is just because of the Venom...Colin." Once Dick and Jason had let up, Colin stood, staggering behind the cover of the bus and letting the Venom leave him, deflating like a balloon. Back down to a managable size, Colin once again threw his arms around Damian, beginning to sob. "How did you get out of Gotham?"

"I, I was stuck there for ages, but one of the rescue 'copters found me and, and the rest of the orphanage just _vanished_, Damian! All the kids, the nuns...just, gone! And I didn't want to go into another orphanage, so I bulked up and caught one of the Greyhounds out of Bludhaven. And, well, I ended up here." He waved his arm at the filling station, then at the rest of the town. "I figured life would be easier if I just stayed grown up, even though people didn't trust me at first. Especially once they heard that I was from Gotham. But I managed to work out a cover story about working in an orphanage as a teacher, and that I'd take any job anyone had, so they stuck me at the gas pumps. But you guys, you've been all over!"

He chattered on for a good while, about what a big fan he was of the band, how they were doing something important for Gothamites everywhere...but never once did he stop clutching at Damian's arm. And never once did Damian get annoyed and throw the other boy off. Jason smirked, nudging Tim in the ribs. Looking where his brother was motioning, Tim smiled as well, bumping Dick with his hip. Once the entire family had taken a good long gawk, only then did they think to interrupt.

"That's great, Colin, but we're only stopping here to fill up, then head to a show in Kansas." The boy deflated even further, but this time, it had nothing to do with Venom.

"Oh."

"Think you'd want to come with? I'm sure we could find something for you to do, and it _would_ be nice for Damian to have a sidekick of his own around..."

Several joyous, decidedly unmanly shrieks and protests of how, "You're several strings short of a full orchestra, Grayson, if you think I have some kind of crazed need for partnership like the rest of you animals.", a re-Venomed Colin went to quit his job and gather his few posessions. Before long, they were off to Topeaka, a new hand on deck.

The show had been _wild_.

A packed house, with people coming from as far out as Denver to see them play. A full set and six encores later, they were finally heading backstage. Cass and Colin had been working door security all throughout the state, and so far, no one had gotten past them, though Alfred had had to explain the difference between 'crazed fangirl' and 'girl with a bomb' several times to Cass.

"What do you _mean_ someone got past you?"

Jason looked the part of a raving madman, holding Colin against the frame of the stage door with nothing more than a manic stare and a threat of a fist to the face. Colin gulped, looking pitifully towards Cass for assistance, but she just shrugged.

"He, she, they were _really_ strong and persuasive and then they were in and don't kill me in a fit of rage they said they thought you guys would like the surprise and-"

"And just who the _fuck_ told you that?"

"Oh, just us."

Jason whipped around, a glare in his eyes and murder in his face, then burst out laughing. "Oh god, it's just you guys. Tell Dick and Tim they can come in, Towel Girl isn't back for round twelve." Kon quirked a brow.

"Okay, I'm gonna have to hear that story." His eyes lit up as Tim rushed towards him. "Some other time. Tim!" As the two friends embraced, Jason turned to the rest of his little brother's old team.

Cassie rushed to the girls, giving them hugs and immediately launching into a tirade about how they should have contacted them. Bart was, amazingly, a bit more subdued, waiting until his two best friends had finished hugging before jumping at Tim like a maniac and demanding an autograph, "Because Robins merch is so hot on eBay right now, you have no idea. One of Jason's broken drumsticks went for like, three hundred bucks last week!" Eddie, Rose, and a figure in a hooded jacket (that said 'Robins' across the front, naturally) that he didn't quite recognize hung back, waiting for Jason to approach them.

Eddie had his fanboy hat jammed on tight, going on and on about the little things about Gotham Tim was slipping into their songs. "Seriously, man, one of these days, I think someone is going to figure out who you guys are. Were. Are?" Rose just grinned, bumping his hip as she sauntered past him before stealing one of his post-concert beers from the backstage fridge and going to talk to ("Hit on," Jason's brain automatically supplied) Dick. That left him with the still-yammering Eddie and the hooded figure. It was then, in the awful fluorescent light, that he noticed the strands of purple hair sticking to the black fabric. He grinned, letting out a sharp bark of laughter as he pushed the hood back. The girl blinked at the suddenly bright light.

"Takabe! When did you start willingly leaving the wall?"

"When did you start playing drums in a rock and roll band?" Her small smirk caused his to grin to widen.

"Touche. Well..?" She blinked up at him, then at Eddie, who had stopped his fan-rant to goggle at the two of them like he was a tennis match. "What did you think of the show?" He clarified, staring down at her expectantly.

"It...was not bad. Dick tends to get too stage-quirky after the sixth song or so, and Tim could do with a bit of time out of the shadows, but the rest was very nice. I did not think I would ever hear a cover of _Science Fiction Double Feature_ with an oud in my lifetime. I, I enjoyed that." Her praise seemed to flip a switch and, nodding, he turned back to Eddie.

"So what's this I hear about you nailing tuxedo boy?"

From his own little corner of the backstage area, Damian watched his family. Jason with his stammering, beetroot email pal, Steph and her hens, Tim and his...metas, even Dick had managed to wander away from Rose to wrap an affectionate ("Protective?" he wondered) arm around Tim's shoulders. Colin was slumped against his shoulder, the exertion from the Venom and fighting off hordes of screaming fans having taken its toll on the boy. Slouching slightly, Damian allowed his friend to rest his head in the crook of his neck as he tuned his oud. Sure, they were eight to a bus, fought constantly, and had odd little incestual love triangles, but they were happy. Setting down his instrument and pulling Colin in close to his side, Damian sighed. They were his family, and he wouldn't be the same without him.

Fini

Yeah, I finally wrote something for the Robins Band AU, and it's pretty schmoopy and awful. Couldn't resist sticking Ko in there as a quick cameo character. Y'all may recognize her from some of my Teen Titans stories. I'm damn fond of this girl.

Anyway, I've blathered long enough. If you liked this, tell me. I like this AU and wouldn't be against writing more.


End file.
